How would I go about asking this?

[Claude C Kenny]

I have no talent when it comes to art, especially trying to create something on a computer. I want to know if there's a way to ask someone who knows how to make and change the colors of sprites and portaits if they would be willing to make them for me. I know this is probably a stupid question, but it's the only part about hacking FE that i'm not good at. well actually, I am still trying to figure out how to edit text, but that probably won't be a problem once I learn how.

I don't have much to offer, nor would I know what to offer, other than finding a spot in the character roster for anyone who did help me, and letting them design what they would want for their character.

Edited January 2, 2011 by Claude_C_Kenny

[eclipse]

You'll want to direct this one at the Spriting guys. I'm not particularly good at spriting, but I should be able to answer this (I hope).

MS Paint works best for color swapping. If you have Windows, you probably have this program on your computer.

First, lemme grab someone. . .

Ross: Ow, OW, stop pulling my ear!

Me: I need to borrow you.

Now we're going to change his hair color from its current color to something more appropriate. For that, I'll need. . .

Marisa: At your service.

Ross: Please tell me you're joking. . .wait, you're serious?!

1. Find the Pick Color tool. It looks like an eye dropper, and is right below the eraser.

2. Click on the Pick Color tool.

3. RIGHT-CLICK on the lightest shade of Marisa's hair.

4. Re-select the Pick Color too.

5. LEFT-CLICK on the lightest shade of Ross' hair.

6. Now select the Eraser tool.

7. Hold down the RIGHT mouse button.

8. Pass this over Ross' hair. You'll notice it changes color. Continue to erase in this manner to recolor Ross' hair.

9. Repeat the above for the midtone and shadow colors. You might need to zoom in to see them clearly.

10. Run, because Ross looks really angry.

[Claude C Kenny]

sounds easy, but how do I get the portrait/sprite off of the ROM, and then back onto it when i'm done?

Edited January 2, 2011 by Claude_C_Kenny

[CT075]

Okay, listen up (or, read carefully is more like it but w/e.)

First, make your mug in Paint. You have no reason to actually rip existing mugs from the ROM.

Secondly, you need to frame it. A typical framed portrait usually looks something like this:

You see that left column? For that, you need two blinking frames, usually half-closed and then the closed eye frames. On top of those is the chibi, which is the mini portrait used when you highlight the unit.

The bottom two rows are the talking frames. The top row is the smiling frames, while the bottom row is the normal frames.

Then you open up FEditor and open Portrait Editor. Just hit "insert", select your file (preferably saved as a PNG), and bam you're done.

---

And when you say that you're good at the rest of hacking, I take that to mean that you are good at making and inserting maps, as well as events, or graphics, music and the like? Nightmare is only the beginning of what defines a good FE hack.

tl;dr Real FE hacking requires more than FEditor and Nightmare.

[Claude C Kenny]

following tutorials, I could probably do just about anything. inserting/removing data, I have made maps before, and I can figure out how to change colors. my problem is that, for some of my characters, I need more than just changing colors on existing sprites (which i'm sure you just hinted at, saying it takes more than FEditor and nightmare to make a good hack). I need freshly created portraits and sprites for several characters, and if that requires to actually try and draw pictures using whatever program on the internet, then I might as well ditch those ideas, unless someone who has that talent would do it for me, which is probably tough to ask someone to dedicate time to someone elses project, instead of doing things that they want to do.

i'm not trying to be rude with my message, but tl:dr - I don't have the talent to make my sprites and portraits, but yes, I can do everything else.

[Crimson Red]

Just wanted to say good luck

trying to find someone who can do what you want

that is all

[CT075]

i'm not trying to be rude with my message, but tl:dr - I don't have the talent to make my sprites and portraits, but yes, I can do everything else.

Okay, sure. I believe you. I just figured I'd let you know, because I've seen countless people on this forum start a hack that never finished, due to lack of dedication, or laziness, or just not wanting to do that much work. If you're not one of those people, more power to you.

And if you want to find a spriter for you, good luck with that. It's probably simpler to just make the sprites on your own (and don't tell me that you can't). I probably have less than half as much artistic talent as the average person you would find on the internet, yet I can make half decent sprites in Microsoft Paint (should come default if you have a Windows OS). Start simple, just recoloring sprites the way eclipse up there told you to. Then you can move on to splicing two or three mugs together, maybe joining the local splicing contests. And above all, make a spriting thread so people can give you criticism so you can get even better.

The only alternative would be to try to be as nice a guy as you can, and win some friends who are good spriters. Then you could ask them for sprites, although I still find it much faster just to make my own mugs.

tl;dr learn to make the mugs yourself.

[Claude C Kenny]

I'm checking right now to see which characters I would be satisfied with simply being a color swap. at least half of my playable characters were supposed to have new portraits, and about 1/3 of those with exclusive sprites. and designing characters for my final chapter is going to be a killer.

i've played around with nightmare alot, and i've made maps before, but I can't seem to get anything to work with this FEditor I downloaded, even after java was installed. also, someone told me I would need a tool for compressing and decompressing data. so how do I get this stuff to work, and what other programs would I wind up needing?